L&T eyes mega play in nuclear power

NEW DELHI: Construction engineering-to-infotech major Larsen & Toubro on Tuesday claimed it is capable of building nuclear plants capable of
producing 3,000-4,000 mw of power every year and will also bid for building the Navy's second line of conventional submarines.

"It is not difficult for us to build 3,000-4,000 mw nuclear plants every year," company chairman A M Naik told reporters here. L&T has at present expertise to build 1,000 mw plants and has inked MoU with, as Naik put it, almost all companies — except Areva — keen on doing business in the country in the nuclear sector.

L&T is also in talks with Canadian nuclear firms to build 1,200-mw reactors and it has invested about Rs 5,000 crore in establishing a nuclear shop at Hazira in Gujarat which can undertake all activities related to building of atomic power plants.

Naik said the aim is to get orders worth Rs 1,500 crore in the nuclear sector annually if it continues to do "piecemeal projects" as it does at present. "The nuclear business can be worth Rs 7,000 crore annually if we are allowed to do projects on a turn-key basis...Let me do the whole thing (nuclear plant) and I will deliver it in five years," Naik said.

Naik also said L&T will bid for building the Navy's second line of conventional submarines and recalled that it had "almost won" the contract for Amur-class vessels that never took off. He said the company's shipbuilding facilities in Hazira in Gujarat and Kattupalli near Chennai in Tamil Nadu had capacities to take up construction of all types of warships, including submarines.

"Our shipyards in Hazira and Kattupalli have the capability to take up construction of vessels of about 7,000 to 9,000 tonnage and even warships of the size three or four times these vessels... We are bidding for the Navy's second line of submarines. We would like to recall that we were the chosen ones for the Amur-class submarines, which did not fructify."